Retailers Turn to AI to Combat Burnout, Decrease Merchandiser Workloads
As retailers look at getting more done and freeing up their staff to focus on high-value tasks, interest is growing in the use of AI to handle the mundane tasks that take up too much of a merchandiser’s time — like fixing typos on e-commerce websites and researching underperforming product categories. Retailers are also using AI to flag when new products show signs of being more popular than expected, so merchandisers can act quickly and notch strategic wins.
How AI Is Driving the Next Generation of Ad Creative
Most industries have a healthy fear that artificial intelligence is going to render humans obsolete (and even possibly take over the world). But for the digital advertising industry, if applied the right way, AI has the potential to improve production and performance by making more room for original ideas without stripping away reliance on humans.
Retailers Use AI to Combat Shrinking Seasonal Workforce, Surging Customer Demands
Increases in customer service tickets are expected to come just as seasonal workforces are hitting all-time lows. According to Puneet Mehta, founder and CEO of the AI platform Netomi, about 25% fewer agents are working in seasonal customer service roles now than before the pandemic. Customer service accounts for a lot of the seasonal roles retailers have traditionally hired for, and now retailers are looking at leveraging technology to fill that labor gap.
Retailers Use AI to Mine Social Data for Back-to-School Trends
Students across the country are returning to the classroom this month — some for the first time in more than a year. While early indications show strong late-summer back-to-school sales, retailers aren’t leaving anything up to chance. Widespread confusion around health policies, safety protocols, and required supplies that can vary by school are leading retailers to rely on social media and artificial intelligence to collect information on emerging themes and trends.
Think You’re Ready for AI? You Might Not Be
Despite its great promise, AI is not for everyone, and integrating AI into your existing functions isn’t something that happens overnight. If you’re not ready – and you don’t have the right kind of data to make AI productive and the insights actionable – it can be more of a hindrance than a help. AI-based campaigns should be approached carefully and methodically, but if done right, the payoff can be substantial.
Digital Marketers Deploy AI to Break through the Noise
Chief among the newest strategies brands are adopting is the use of artificial intelligence in digital marketing. Brands are increasingly willing to try AI to gain a better understanding of customer behavior, so they can spend more time on creativity and delivering more relevant content, says Mary Schneeberger, director of the integrated marketing practice at Avionos.
How McDonald’s is Using AI in Marketing to Better Understand Customers’ Needs
McDonald’s waited until it could produce an AI-driven app that provides customers with personalized deals based on their purchasing history. In other words, McDonald’s bet on quality over quantity. This, of course, is just one of the ways that AI presents opportunities and challenges alike in regards to martech.
As we’ve previously noted, as AI adoption increases, brands are searching for a competitive edge. McDonald’s is no exception to this, and a look at how the company is using AI is instructive as to the opportunities AI presents for other firms.
More Brands Are Scaling Digital Channels for Customer Engagement — Here’s Why
Communicating with brands on social media has become the norm for consumers. Surveys show that roughly half of all consumers who engage with brands on social media are reaching out about customer care concerns, and more than 65% of social media users across all platforms expect brands to respond, regardless of whether the initial outreach was via private messages or public posts.
Those expectations have only heightened over the past six months, and many brands have had to pivot their customer support and engagement priorities on the fly.
Location Weekly: Walmart’s Grocery Partnership with Yahoo Mail
In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association covers Walmart partnering to let people buy groceries through Yahoo Mail, Iceland’s Airport using sensors and AI to streamline passenger flow, a project between Trident and Instagram that can get you to the Grammy’s, and MUJI taking their products to the mountains.
AI’s Promise and Challenges for Martech
In this article, we will discuss the ways artificial intelligence is changing marketing and why this marks a positive change. This article will also discuss how metadata can be more revealing than event data itself when collected and analyzed in aggregate, and why making all this data functional is the main strength of AI technology.
Adapting to Covid-19 Using Location Data
My personal experience getting sick during the pandemic also got me thinking about how easy it is to spread the virus just by moving around and how important it is to abide by government guidance to stay at home or at least limit your movements. As someone who works in the location data industry, I have an appreciation for the mass movement of people, and staying at home and limiting contact with other people is the right thing to do right now.
I also had the chance to think about how location data could be used to help hospitals, governments, and businesses combat the spread of the virus.
Computers Without Boundaries: A Deep Dive Into Ambient Computing
“Ambient computing” is actually a catch-all term for several new technologies. These include Internet of Things (IoT) devices, AI-driven devices, and cloud storage solutions that allow previously impossible amounts of data to be stored and processed.
The advantage of looking at these technologies under one term, though, is that it allows us to see the future of marketing more holistically. And that’s what we’ll look at in this article.
Dispatch from CES: Giant TVs, Obsequious Gadgets, and Artificial People
I’m fresh from a couple of days wandering the halls of the Consumer Electronics Show, affectionately known as CES — the annual conference that descends upon Las Vegas in January and proffers the latest in technological solutions to improve every aspect of our daily lives. This is my first time attending the world’s biggest technology conference, where 4,500 companies this year are vying for the attention of 180,000 attendees, according to my Uber driver.
As I made my way through the crowds at the massive Las Vegas Convention Center and other conference venues, I tried to get a sense of the common themes defining consumer innovation as we begin a new decade.
How AI Can Help Retailers Deal with Major Disruption from Hurricanes
AI is emerging as an indispensable tool in helping retail shippers better navigate periods of disruption like hurricane season. Here are a few key ways how.